Like Christmas every other month!

I work full-time, and really wish I had time to read more often than I do. Since my commute has changed since my last job where I was taking a bus to and from (and hence had more time to read), the number of books I go through in a month has declined from 5 or 6 to 1.

Thankfully, Harlequin Reader Services gives me a gentle reminder every two months that I need to get down and start reading! This weekend, I received the following four books in a neat little package on my doorstep:

This month is especially great for me, because I haven't read a single title from any of these authors yet! (Yeah yeah, *hiss, boo*) I'm a bit thrown off by the different style of cover used for Heather Graham's book The Keepers, because as silly as it sounds it just doesn't feel like a Nocturne. So, I think that's the one I'll have to start with first!

On another note, I do like to consider myself an environmentalist. I recycle when I don't reuse a container, I eat low-impact foods, create so little waste that between two people in the same house, we throw the garbage out maybe once per week, usually because someone put food in the trash and it's getting smelly. But lately I've been criticized because I *gasp* read hard copies of books.

I do have a Kindle application on my iPhone, which I do use occasionally. I have several dozen books on Kindle, mostly classics and free reads from Harlequin and Ellora's Cave, so I don't consider that in lieu of my hard-copy book collection, which runs upwards of several hundred books. (I'll catalog them one day, I swear.)

I don't throw books away, never never. Not even if I've read them a hundred times (or five, which is the most I've ever read one book -- The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, so well-loved that the cover has been taped back on). So it's not a matter of creating waste with my books at all.

To me, nothing beats the smell of a real book, the weight of it in my hands, the sound it makes when I turn the pages, the paper cuts I get when I'm so excited that I'm turning the page too quickly. But when it comes down to playing passenger a 20-hour road trip up or down the East Coast and I'm getting a craving for some Vivi Anna, I just can't conjure up a book out of thin air without Kindle!

How do you feel about eBooks versus hard copies of books?

Critique me, please!

So after jumping back onto the wagon and writing my fingers off, a few CP's have given some pretty harsh criticism on my beloved WIP.

Yes!

I'm thrilled for this. While I like a yes-man, I love a make-it-better-this-way-man even more. One gave me some excellent resources, a few of which Ill be posting in a widget on the side of this blog.

Now... once I'm done being ill, it's back to writing. For now, just sipping chai and hoping that my sinuses clear out by Monday so I can finally get out of bed and go back to work!

Commitmentphobia

A term I use to describe the inability of my longtime partner to make our relationship mean something to the government using the "M" word (since we both are pretty sure it means something to us and our families), I also suffer from severe commitmentphobia.

I am approximately 400 words away from completing my first ever MS, and what do I do?

Scrap it.

Not because I think it sucks. Not because I don't want to finish it. But because those last 400 words need to be perfect, need to do all the other words justice to tie together that one niggling loose end that would bring the whole story to a beautiful and blissful end.

Eh, not to be.

As a writer, I am severely attention-deficit. I fall in love with my heroes and heroines and mull over their lives for weeks and months (if lucky) at a time. When it comes to finishing them off though, it's time to move onto the next best thing.

So how do you finish a story? I feel that as a pantser I'm at a disadvantage here, because there is no clear-cut ending to my characters' saga.

When do you know that a story is finished? I know how I want it to end, but when do you feel comfortable closing the figurative cover, content with the knowledge that you've done everything you possibly could do to make sure your couple (or triad, or what have you) has reached there HEA (or happy-for-now)?

Finally, an introduction!

I began this blog as a way to chronicle my adventures in the romance-writing realm. On the precipice of finishing my first full story for publication, my personal life intervened and put the completion of this story off for another few weeks.

I feel like I am chronically in this state of in-between. Even after over two decades of writing for pleasure, I have a difficult time sticking with one story to the end. I say, no more! This blog is my accountability log. I will use it to post my progress, to keep in touch with fellow writers, to review stories that have inspired me, and whatever other ramblings I can't keep to myself!

My name is Renee. I'm excited to begin this adventure!